Pale Air Singers – Pale Air Singers
This album comes from amongst the small avalanche which filled up my inbox while I was away in Italy, and it has taken me a little while to get to it, as I’ve slowly sorted through everything which came my way in June. Even then, it’s far from a new album to begin with, having actually been released back in April.
The Pale Air Singers are on Flemish Eye Records, who are a really superb little record label (Women, Chad VanGaalen) and this is a collaboration between Run Chico Run and another Flemish Eye band, The Cape May. Calgary isn’t where I would have immediately thought to look for cracking bands, but this record was recorded both there and in Victoria in British Columbia.
I’ve heard this descibed as cabaret pop, but I don’t really see that. It’s an indie-pop album, for sure, but the high piano has a touch of twinkle and chime which occasionally almost reminds me of stuff like Peter Gabriel and David Byrne for some reason. For the most part, though, this record does seem to fit well within the broad, slight eccentric envelope of recent Canadian indie pop – maybe harking back a couple of years to the more sprightly likes of the New Pornographers, although that’s not a great comparison really.
A large chunk of this record is about rhythm, if you ask me. The piano is off-kilter and can wrongfoot you from time to time, but it is still the heartbeat of a lot of the album, jumping sharply along under the surface. When it isn’t there, usually on the slower songs, its job is usually done by a slow guitar strum or slightly skittish drum beat. These more downbeat numbers steer a course slightly away from indie-pop and seem to flirt more with a territory which I would loosely describe as Americana.
There’s something in the harmonies and the guitar, however, which keep this album firmly rooted to indie-pop, to my ears. The guitar, like the piano, uses that sharp change of direction to nudge at the listener from time to time but it does it in a way which reminds me just a little of slightly more haircutty indie bands – the sort inspired by Pavement – and conspires to keep things pop. It’s this odd juxtaposition of the trendy with the old-fashioned which I love about this, I think. The two aspects of the music mesh beautifully, sliding back and forth over one another in such a way that any generalisations you might make in your head about this album are constantly having to change to keep up with the subtly shifting pace of the music itself.
Pale Air Singers – Convict Escapes
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Pale Air Singers – Cubby, He Chopped Me Down
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